


Big Brother Falls

by Littlebluejay_hidingpeanuts



Category: 1984 - George Orwell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-01-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:27:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22424827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Littlebluejay_hidingpeanuts/pseuds/Littlebluejay_hidingpeanuts
Summary: Alternate ending to 1984
Comments: 4
Kudos: 24





	Big Brother Falls

After Winston left the Ministry of Love, his heart belonged to the Party. He loved Big Brother. What a wonderful world to live in when the Party controlled things. Big Brother’s eyes stared out at him from endless posters, mysterious and sympathetic like O’Brien’s.Life was good and rich for a Party member. Except, if the proles ever revolt.

Now wherever did that thought come from? Traitorous thought, fit only to be extinguished by the honorable comrades on the MiniLuv, should not be in the mind of one so patriotic as Winston was. Best just to forget about it.

Winston had yet to see Julia, though she was forever in his dreams. Always, rats would reach her before he could and begin ripping her face to shreds. Surprisingly, after having betrayed her and her probably betraying him, Winston felt not hurt or unfeeling, but caring. He cared for her. Hoped that she was okay and had joined Big Brother. He wanted to see her. He wanted her in his arms. Though his heart belonged to the Party, his muscles, his organs, his very skin belonged to her. Hoping that she was still alive kept him going through the day.

The third week he was back, Winston sat down at his desk. It was the first time he had done so given his busy schedule. The Ministry of Truth was keeping him fairly busy to stifle any chance of him reverting to his old self. As if that could ever happen. Just where it had been since he left, Winston reached into the front drawer and found his journal!

“Oh, no! Contraband!” he murmured. Why did they leave it? O’Brien knew, knew!, that Winston had this journal and yet here it was. He looked through the pages. Everything he had written, everything he had once thought, was still there. How strange! There, at the end, was something he did not write; though it was in his handwriting.

“Oranges and lemons, say the bells…” he whispered. The poem! Why had he not seen it before? The poem was an example of the past! Old buildings and old phrases mixed together. It all came flooding back now. All the belief, all the hope, all the mistrust, and most of all, his heart. Silly, really. One little poem and all their effort went to waste. Winston had himself back and won something else as well. He acquired a strength he had never felt before. In the knowledge that, thought they had broken him, bending him to their will, he, Winston Smith, the lowly, confused nobody, had persevered. With all his newfound heart, he hopped that Julia had, too.

All this he wrote in his journal. All this self-discovery made him giddy. He was no longer writing for O’Brien, but for himself. It made him smile and chuckle softly. A dangerous thing to do so close to a telescreen that made him cherish it all the more. But no shouting came from it. He was safe for the moment. Well, as safe as could be. He walked into the kitchen, the smile not yet faded away, for a drink. By about the middle of his second week back, Winston had decided to stop smoking. He just had no desire to continue. He had kept it up when he first returned to keep up routine. Now he was not even sure about drinking anymore. But the gin was still in the apartment and he was thirsty. O’Brien had certainly made sure he was dependent on liquor while in the MiniLuv. He had used it as a pain reliever almost. He always had a drink on hand for Winston.

Opening the fridge, Winston found not Victory gin, but a bottle of real red wine. Astounded, Winston began to chuckle again. Long hours had not only kept Winston from his desk, but his kitchen as well, except for the random glass of water. He had taken all his meals at work. This was the first day he had had a normal workload. They obviously thought he was under control. Security was relaxed when the treatment was believed to have kept hold of Winston’s mind. Unfortunately for every member of the opposition, Winston now had perfect control over his own mind and body, thanks to O’Brien’s gift of the poem. With total calm and command, Winston took O’Brien’s bottle of wine, stepped out of the kitchen, and hurled it at the telescreen. Red liquid flew everywhere, staining the white walls, ceiling and carpet. It was safe to say, that Winston had snapped. He picked up the telescreen and threw it at the front door. It rattled as it hit the floor, crunched, stuttering warnings to stand still and wait. A second crash was heard throughout the building as he slammed it through the window seconds later. Lies! All lies! That’s all O’Brien had ever told him. He was no friend. He was an enemy who would be killed the next time Winston saw him.

Winston was furious. In a rage, he flew about the rooms breaking things, roaring out his anger. Finally, he settled down enough to pack a bag and grab O’Brien’s other gift, the journal. Praying he would get away, that Julia was safe, and that O’Brien, Big Brother, and the entire Party would get their dues, Winston left his apartment never to return. The children he passed on his way out, suspicion in their eyes, scrambled to get out of the way of his stampeding pace. He did not look like a man who would calmly get out of the way of disloyal children. The children finally feared something and it was their neighbor.

Later that year, Big Brother fell. With Goldstein out of hiding, the Party weakened after numerous attacks on the Ministries. Goldstein led the proles to victory, ultimately to peace for Oceania. With new rules in place, people were slowly becoming accustomed to the idea of freedom. People could do what they wanted without fear. Goldstein released all the prisoners from the Ministries and the camps. He even married a prisoner. A lovely girl, if a bit flighty, named Julia became his bride. Goldstein set up shop, not in a grand home or in one of the Ministries, but in a peculiar little antique store. He was known for spouting off a tiny poem at the oddest times. It always started: “Oranges and lemons,” and seemed to be about saints’ bells. It ended with; “Here comes the chopper to chop off Party heads.” 


End file.
